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Thanks for taking the time to run this competition, @bensharpeningcharacter! Here are the verspics that I made. Looking forward to hearing any critique or tips that will help us create better verspics. 🙂

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First of all, I like that you put a path in your image to help signify “he shall direct your paths” and that you put your subject off center to help give the verse more prominence. The bokeh is lovely in the background, and the dramatic side lighting is interesting.

While I can see where you got the idea for the text to be yellow (the girl’s shirt) and it does stand out against the background, I think it’s ultimately distracting from rather than helping the overall design. I’ve found a dark shade from the photo or white works best to complement rather than take away from photos.

The focal point of the photo is really on the top-left third due to all the leading lines. Having the text down at the bottom of the photo instead of at the focal point means my eye goes to the girl, end of the path, and then to the text. If you moved the text more towards the vertical center of the photo, it could help with this.

For ease of use, I’ll refer to the bridge/tunnel design as D1 and the dandelion design as D2.

D1

Couple things here:

While I like that you were thinking of an off center subject, this is one photo where a centered composition could have been very effective. Additionally, because you’re not using any of the space off to the right, you could crop in tighter to the left without hurting the overall design at all.

I definitely like that you experimented with your typefaces here! Both seem to work and look pleasant together, and that can be difficult to do, so good job! “in the LORD” appears to be just slightly larger than the rest of the text, which is slightly distracting. A rule of thumb in photography and design is that if the effect you’re going for isn’t obvious, it looks like a mistake, so be bold and obvious if you want to change the font size!

While I like that you didn’t just slap the text in there on with a center orientation, I don’t particularly like that the text goes down to a single word per line there in the middle. You need to be very careful when you are trying to get that particular effect. It would have been better to keep at least two words per line or to move the text over a bit. At first I thought you were masking the text box around the tunnel exit, but “all thine heart” continues to go out, so I’m not sure.

Overall, good job!

D2

You’re continuing to use the same typeface choices here but I feel like they work even better on this photo than the last!

I don’t think moving around the alignment of the text here is effective in this design. There’s a lot of negative space for you to work with here, but there’s no objects for you to work the text around. Because of this, there appears to be six different alignments in this photo which makes it harder to read overall.

Again, there’s quite a few font sizes here and I’m left wondering if “in the LORD” and “lean not unto” are the same size. Be careful not to include many changes to font sizes unless you are intentionally trying to create a shift in the hierarchy (perceived importance of an element) of your design.

Because the majority of the photo is taken up by the sunflower head bathed in shadow and the exposure is set for the petals and sky, the photo feels a little underexposed. That certainly helps the text stand out, but I do wonder what it would look like if you brightened up the photo a little to compensate for that.

Something good to remember when designing is that any time you change ANYTHING about a design, you change the visual hierarchy (perceived importance of an element). By changing the color of the keywords to yellow, you’re effectively saying that “These words are more important” to the viewer. I know that’s the effect you were going for, so that what I just said might seem obvious, but what you do want to be careful of is using emphasis too many times. If everything is important, nothing is. Be very picky of what you want to emphasize in your design and only try to emphasize a few things.

Try to put at least two words per line at a minimum. Unless your font size is huge and every line has one word, it doesn’t look quite right in most circumstances and is known as a “widow” in design circles. Try to avoid widows.

I like that you kept the overlay subtle, but it’s perhaps a little TOO subtle. I’d like to see a slightly darker overlay or a subtle shadow behind the text to help boost legibility. Remember, not everyone who sees your design may be inside in controlled lighting looking at a bright screen. You want to make sure people in direct sunlight can still read your design, and that means making sure you have a good contrast between your background and text.

The reference seems a little bit small here. Perhaps if you made the text uppercase it would help with legibility.

Great work!

Kneeling Girl Design

First, I’ve got to geek out a little about the color of that coat. I LOVE IT! That’s an awesome blue that’s helped by the editing job you’ve done.

Four quick things:

Again, legibility is an issue here. The dark verse text reads fine, but the small blue script up at the top and at the bottom doesn’t read quite as well. A more opaque box could help with this.

It feels like there’s a little too much padding between the reference and the verse. I’d try to tighten that up a bit and see if it works better.

I think some extra padding on the sides of the box would help to give the verse a little more breathing space. It feels a little tight there right now.

Be very careful about letting text run into each other. “direct” interferes a little too much with acknowledge for my tastes, but not too badly. You did the right thing by putting “direct” behind “acknowledge” to help with legibility, though!

Overall, good job with experimenting with the typography, Caitlin, and lovely photograph!

First, I love the colors of this photograph! That rich golden color mixed with the green from the dramatic side lighting is pretty cool (or, I should say, warm. 😉 )!

Because your subject is looking away from the camera towards the background (directing the viewer’s gaze there as well) and this is a landscape photo, I would have liked to see a smaller aperture here. f/11-22 would have really helped keep the background sharp.

As I’ve said earlier, be very careful about what you want to emphasize. I like that you’re thinking beyond a single font size, but I would ask, are the words “trust” and “paths” the words you want people to immediately notice when they see your design? I’m not specifically picking on you, a few others did the same thing, but I would challenge you to think very carefully about what you want to emphasize. Remember, emphasis is most effective when used in moderation.

I think the word “trust” would be a bit more effective if it was placed inline with the rest of the verse rather than be separated off at the top there. It makes it appear as if it’s a widow, a design term for a word that is on its own line. You typically want to avoid having any widows in your designs.

The line that reads “And lean not unto thine own understanding” is a little bit long compared to the other lines of text for my tastes. Perhaps creating a new line or shuffling things around could help make the design more uniform!

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D1
I hadn’t thought about cropping in so it would be centered. I had originally wanted to utilize the space to the right for where the verse was going to be, but then I felt like there was equal pull between the tunnel and the verse, and my eyes didn’t know what was more important. So that’s when I brought the text over to the tunnel, so the focus was all in one place. Problem is, there’s the brightness behind the tunnel, and the darkness inside the tunnel, and it was hard to read the text. This is what led me to place the words around the exit, but I agree with you, I didn’t like the way the single word per line worked out. Not sure that I’ve quite figured out something where I love the look and it’s easy to read the words.

I don’t know if you have ideas on how to get the text to be legible when it’s there on the tunnel. Even when I cropped in closer on the photo today to see how a centered composition would look, it still seemed difficult to read, and putting some sort of transparent box behind the text doesn’t seem to work with the shape of the tunnel. This definitely turned out to be a much more challenging photo than I originally anticipated! 
Attached are some new tries I worked out today for basic ideas. 🙂

D2
I see what you’re saying about font sizes and alignment. I tried to center things better in the attached image. Do you think that it’s an improvement?

Also, I get what you’re saying with what you mentioned in your comment on Morgan’s design about which words are emphasized; how do we balance that with using multiple fonts, or using a different size, boldness, or uppercase/lowercase to create a more appealing look than if it all was the same font, same size, etc.?

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Wow! Thanks for all the tips and encouragement, @bensharpeningcharacter! It’s been so helpful to read through your thoughts about everyone’s verspics.

I’ve ‘updated’ the original verspics I made implementing your suggestions. Hopefully they’re a bit better now! That’s funny that you mentioned that I should do a stronger overlay on ‘Mountain Design’ – I was discussing with my sister about whether or not to do a stronger or lighter one! Now I know! LOL 🙂 I might have gone too heavy handed with it now though, but the verse does stand out more. I feel like the overlay makes the picture look very under-saturated, so I went and made the green band more opaque. Not sure if that was a good idea! Do you have any thoughts on that?

I also went and tried the Kneeling Girl one with your suggestions. I think tightening the box up a bit definitely helped, but I see what you mean with direct and acknowledge colliding! So, I tried a new font which I think looks cleaner and more easy to read.

Remember, not everyone who sees your design may be inside in controlled lighting looking at a bright screen. You want to make sure people in direct sunlight can still read your design, and that means making sure you have a good contrast between your background and text.

This is a great point and something that I hadn’t really considered, so thanks for bringing it up!